


Lovely Invasion or, Invisible Enemy

by littlewonder



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-02 22:10:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8685277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlewonder/pseuds/littlewonder
Summary: A series of private moments from Sherlock's POV, all of which John interrupts. Can be taken as a series of one-shots, or as a chapter-by-chapter story.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've given this fic two titles, in part inspired by a trend popular a century or so ago, and in part because I can't decide and keep confusing the actual title of it.
> 
> The first title carries an obvious implication, that John in each occasion is a welcome invader, whether Sherlock thinks so initially or not.
> 
> The second title is more sinister, and is based off the theory that there are cameras in Baker Street, where each of the chapters so far take place. It carries the implication that each of these moments are being watched, whether by Moriarty or Mycroft.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock misses John. As it turns out, John is just in the next room, and overhears just how much Sherlock misses him. And he misses him too.

Sherlock stared at John’s chair.

The same chair where he’d always sat, right across from him, smiling. The same chair from which he would often listen to clients’ stories with him. The same chair from which he once sat drunk, post-it note on his forehead, and stumbled forward, groping his knee.

Fuck.

John had groped his knee. John had wanted him, wanted to touch him. And Sherlock had done nothing but sit there, glass in hand, and make some sort of feeble expression John had probably misinterpreted as a grimace. John, who had only grown more beautiful over the years, who was so kind and wise and tolerant of him, had wanted to touch him. And what did he do? Push him away again with his words. Like he always did. Because he was _scared_.

And now Sherlock’s thoughts changed into what he might have done. He saw himself spreading his legs for John while his hand was still planted there, inviting him in to explore more. Please, John. Please. Touch me. And when John retreated to his chair, he imagined putting down his drink onto the table beside him and leaning forward himself, stretched out from his chair until he caught onto John’s chair, spread legs hugging John’s as he settled down onto John’s lap. He imagined himself grinding into --

His thoughts took a shift. Now he was alone, grinding into that empty chair, alone and sober in the light of day. His movements stopped. He felt like a bloody horny teenager rutting shamelessly into anything he could find, head empty of thought and dull from a perverse imagination and lack of ambition. He hated himself.

Emerging from his thoughts, he moved from the front room to his bedroom, closing the door behind him. He unbuttoned his trousers, and slid his hand into his pants. He palmed himself vaguely, trying to resist the urge to go further that rose within him. He hummed lowly, trying to wake himself up, turning into a growl when he failed, plunging his hand in his pants and gripping himself harder, ringing his member in rough strokes.

“John…” he moaned, unable to stop the word from leaving his lips. “Oh, John…”

He pushed down trousers and the pants simultaneously, finally fully exposing himself and with pressing fingers he slid his hand up to the head, seeking the slit under the hood and rubbing it hungrily. “John,” he repeated.

Someone rapped at the door. “Sherlock?” said John’s voice. “You okay in there?”

Shit. Did he hear? Did he actually hear him calling his name? God, it was almost like he summoned him there to join him. It was almost like John had come to join Sherlock just as eagerly as he would join him into danger.

But maybe there was something dangerous in this, too.

“I’m fine,” he called. He couldn’t let John see him like this. He couldn’t expose himself to the humiliation.

“Are you sure? I thought I heard you calling my name? You sure you’re not hurt?”

“No, I’m fine,” Sherlock repeated.

Silence followed, and Sherlock wondered if he was still there. So he asked.

“Yeah, I’m still here.”

“How did you even hear me?” Sherlock asked irritably. “What were you even doing?”

“Brushing my teeth in the bathroom.”

Of course. Naturally, he would’ve heard him from there. But wait --

“I didn’t hear the water running.”

“No, well I suppose I…” A pause. “I’d already run it.”

“You’re lying to me.”

“So are you.”

The silence returned. Sherlock still had his cock out, so he put it back in his pants and zipped up his trousers. Slipping the button back in its buttonhole, he turned at met John behind the door. John stood there flushed, hair ruffled where he had carded through. Sherlock scanned his eyes over his body: rumpled jeans showed he had recently had his pants down, but the flush and his lie betrayed that he hadn’t been simply on the toilet; John’s dominant hand was still patchy with lotion, but the other one was dry; there was also a distinctive pressure mark on his wrist, clear and red with the pattern of fabric.

John’s gaze shifted down. To where Sherlock stood tented in his pants. Damn.

“Looks like we’re both losing it a bit.”

Sherlock blushed. “I suppose so.”

Sherlock used to have so much more control of himself. So did John, if current appearance was anything to go by. Sherlock checked his own wrist. A fainter mark than John’s, but still visible.

“It-it didn’t start out that way…” Sherlock looked up John’s red face as he blustered. “I hadn’t planned --“

“Neither did I.”

Clearly the both of them had already made their deductions, and had come to an the same conclusion about the other.

“Perhaps we could agree to never speak of this again?” suggested John.

“I can’t promise,” said Sherlock. “But I shall endeavour to try.”

John looked at him stiffly. “Seriously, Sherlock, no one can know about this.”

“Agreed.”

“Alright,” said John.

Sherlock watched him retreat to the bathroom and then closed his bedroom door. He collapsed onto his back on the bed, rubbing his leg in the effort to resist touching himself again. Soon he heard water running in the bathroom, not in the concentrated manner of the tap, the heavier multiple water pressure of the shower. Ah. That’s what he had planned to do.

As he continued to listen to the sound of the shower, his hand drifted up from his leg again and rubbed his groin again. Goddammit, John… He rubbed himself through his pants and imagined John, naked in the shower, rubbing himself off too, imagined his groans filled up the shower and drifting easily into this room. He quickened his pace, as the temptation to peek in on John became stronger and stronger. Several times, he almost did physically force himself up to peek into one of the windows of the door connecting the two rooms to each other. When he finally did, there was very little he could make out apart from a closed shower curtain and a pile of clothes on the floor.

“Filthy,” he muttered.

“You know I can hear you, Sherlock!” called John.

Sherlock slinked back away from the door and fell back upon the bed. “How about now?” he called to John.

“Yep!”

Just have to be quiet, then. If he can manage it.

He palmed himself through his pants again, now fully erect. Slowly and careful not to make the smallest of sounds, he pulled down his pants again. His erection bobbed up to meet him, and he began to realise he’d had to take off his shirt and jacket if he wanted to avoid making a mess on them. So he did, folding them and placing them onto the other side of the bed. Bare-chested, he resumed pulling on his erection…

The sensations began to wrack his body, and he threw his head back against the pillow to avoid making sounds. Writhing from side to side, he pressed his lips together, accidentally smacking them when he released them. Eventually, soft sighs were wrenched from him, and he had to re-double his efforts to suppress them. He had to press his shoes into the mattress to keep himself grounded, as he lifted himself to thrust into his hand.

Yet all this was not fully satisfying and, chasing orgasm, released his feet from the bed, lifting and spreading his legs for stronger sensation, squeezing himself harder with each pull. If it was anyone else in the other room, he would’ve stopped ages ago, but it was John, and he realised there was a small part of him that wanted him to hear this. So he let himself go.

“ _Ah_ ,” he cried with a heavy voice as his body was flooded with pleasure. “ _Ah_!”

“I can hear you!” called John.

“Good! Hear me then!” Sherlock called, quickening his pace. He was overwhelmed, the sensation reaching their peak. “Ah, John!” he cried as he came, spilling white fluid all over his chest. Milking himself through the after waves, he allowed himself the soft pleasure that was left shuddering through him.

“When you’re done in there, I’m next,” called Sherlock.

“Why don’t you just hop in here with me? If we’re really doing this…”

“Technically, isn’t that cheating?”

“Fuck my wife, she’s done nothing but lie to me. If I’m really staying with her, don’t I deserve a little bit pleasure now and again?”

Sherlock didn’t move. He really wasn’t sure what to do.

“Please, Sherlock?” His voice was softer now, pleading. And Sherlock had to admit he was tempted. Small waves of fear remained shuddering within him, but his body also sang with desire around that fear, and he hastily threw off his pants and his shoes and socks, dashing through the door and into the shower with John.

“I seem to have lost my edge,” he told John.

John kissed him. “Fuck it. This is so much better.”

John’s hand was on his erection, and Sherlock drank it in. John’s member looked so different from his own, the size, the shape. Almost without thinking, he put his own hand on it, just above John’s, and slowly, they began to stroke it in unison. As the pace quickened, John released his grip on it and threw his head back, as Sherlock stroked him to orgasm.

“Oh, _Sherlock_ ,” cried John.

But just as John reached the edge, Sherlock stopped.

“Why the fuck have you --“

Sherlock dropped to his knees.

“-- _Oh_.”

John carded his fingers through Sherlock’s hair while he sucked his head, gently but firmly, over the edge.

“ _OH_ ,” he cried as he came in Sherlock’s mouth.

Shuddering, he pressed carefully into Sherlock’s mouth as he rode out the waves of his orgasm.

Sherlock pulled out with a pop and stood up again. “Now,” John said, staring pointedly at the stain on his chest, “let’s get you cleaned up.” He turned Sherlock around so he was facing the stream of the water, rubbing his hands sensually over his chest to wipe the semen off. “There,” he said, as it was washed off. “All better,” he said, turning Sherlock to face him again, and kissing his lips.

He tasted his own come. “Perhaps we should wash each other.”

“Good idea,” said Sherlock.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock feels the pangs of self doubt. John to the rescue.

Sherlock huffed out a breath as he entered his room, alone, and leaned against the door after him. It had been a long, exhausting day. But, if he was honest with himself, it was more than that. Self-doubt had niggled its way into his heart, made him feel wrong, that he was doing something that was wrong, that he himself was wrong in his heart or mind, that even his body was wrong, that he was simply the living product of malformation.

He sighed, stepping away from the door to stand in front of the mirror. He looked sad. His body sagged in his suit, covering the creature that lay caged within it. Even the suit, the disguise, was enough to inspire revulsion. Sherlock knew there was only one thing he could do about it. He simply had to strip all this away and face himself, stark naked, in that mirror. He had to face himself, and what he was -- the _freak_ that he was.

He started with his trench coat. He delicately slipped it off his shoulders and placed it neatly on the bed. He quickly removed his blue scarf and tossed this towards his trench coat, and followed that with his suit jacket. Then he undid the buttons on his shirt and neatly placed it on top.

He took a deep breath, looking at himself in the mirror. His eyes guiding over his nipples, the exact shape of his pecs, and his stomach. He hated what he saw. And it was only going to get worse from here, he was only going get more exposed and he continued, if only to himself. And god, he really needed no one else to interrupt, no one else to see him this way.

His mind flashed to John, to what he had already seen of him. _No, not even him._

Keeping a steady breath, he undid his black belt and slid it from his trousers, looping it and placing it next to his shirt and jacket on the bed. He hated himself as he undid the button and zip on his trousers, before remembering his shoes were still on his feet. So he crouched to one knee and undid the laces on one, and then the other, aligning them next to the bed, and then rolling off his white socks and placing each in the mouth of each polished black shoe.

Once again he stood to face himself in the mirror, slipping down his trousers off and folding them--

“Sherlock, have you seen my --?” John burst through the bathroom door then froze, his eyes roving over Sherlock’s mostly-naked body, an expression of lust and appreciation evident in his eyes. Like some perverse idol worshipper over some barbaric god.

“John!”

He grabbed for his trench coat again, throwing everything else onto the ground as he picked it up and used it to cover his chest and legs. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

“I’ve seen worse,” said John. “What are you doing?”

“I --“ He could make up a lie, could say he was simply readying himself for a shower. But the blush in his cheeks and the panic and dread surging through him was a dead giveaway that there was more to the story than that. That, and the fact that he was utterly unprepared, and was undressed in his room, not the bathroom.

So he decided to confess. “Just -- looking.” Well, not totally.

John smirked, looking him up and down again. “Looking?” he said. “Geez, Sherlock, I knew you were vain but --“

“No, not like that,” said Sherlock.

“Then like what?”

The question, so innocently asked, dropped from John’s tongue too casually, too softly. He was blind to Sherlock’s faults, to his self-loathing.

“Just -- reaffirming?”

“Reaffirming?” This time less teasing, more curious.

“Yes,” Sherlock said, finding it hard to look John in the eye.

“Reaffirming what?”

“Myself. What I am.”

“What, a genius? A knockout?”

John, so blind, so loving. “No,” said Sherlock.

“Then what?”

“Something… more than just a --“

“What?” Scared, concerned now, John stood at attention now, pushing himself up off the doorframe.

“--freak,” said Sherlock.

“Oh, Sherlock…” Love, affection, fondness… and pity was clear in John’s eyes as he surged forward and touched Sherlock’s exposed shoulder. “You could never be a freak in my eyes. Not to me.”

“I know,” said Sherlock. “But mine…?”

“Oh, Sherlock…” John repeated.

“It really is quite affirming…” Sherlock forced himself to say, lowering the trench coat and throwing it on the bed again, forcing himself to turn and look at himself in nothing but his pants. He hated himself… but then he saw the look in John’s eyes, the look of love and attraction, and realised it wasn’t the act of facing himself like this that was so affirming… it was being able to look at himself through John’s eyes. To reassess and realise that the shape of his body wasn’t ugly, it was beautiful. Thin, but strong. Everything in its right place. Perhaps he wasn’t so bad after all.

He hooked his thumbs into his underwear, ready to face the final piece of his anatomy to try to make the same claims. Then he spotted John’s loving look in the mirror, by his shoulder, and paused, scared.

John stroked a gentle hand down his shoulder. “It’s okay…” he said, the silence seeming to miss something. They were both holding something back. He turned his head towards John.

“John,” he said.

“What?” He looked up, eyes sparkling.

“What were you going to say?”

“Mm, nothing.”

“After ‘it’s okay’, you were going to say something. What is it?”

“It’s not important.”

“I need to do this. But I can’t until you tell me.”

“…love,” said John, looking away, a blush running up his cheeks.

Sherlock pulled down his pants. And there he was in all his glory, the shape of him hanging off his body. “Beautiful…” John whispered into his shoulder.

They stood there together in silence for several minutes. Sherlock realised they had faced this together, as a couple, and Sherlock hadn’t simply run away into the bathroom and left John in front of the mirror. He hadn’t faced himself in the too-short bathroom mirror, shutting John out of sight of his body, separating both of their naked bodies by a thin wall. They stood in this room together, just as he had stood naked with John in the shower last night.

John stood there gazing, in love with him. ‘Love,’ he had said.

He also stood there completely clothed.

“Take off your clothes,” Sherlock ordered.

At John’s questioning look, Sherlock elaborated, “It really is quite affirming. You should really try it.”

With a wicked grin, John threw off his clothes with abandon. He really was quite messier about it than Sherlock was, not even trying to avoid a mess. Well, Sherlock had already caused one to start with…

And finally, both men stood there, completely naked, staring between each other and their reflection.

“You’re right, this really is affirming. Also I love you.”

Sherlock grinned. “Yeah, I know. Me too.”

“Has it worked for you, then? Do you really see yourself as beautiful now?”

“I really do,” he said, eyes worshipping John’s figure.

“As well you should,” John grinned back. “And don’t think I don’t see you looking at me, either. I see you.”

“Of course you do, John,” said Sherlock affectionately. “Of course you do.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John goes back to Mary, under Sherlock's request. But as John soon discovers, the separation is torturing him.

2am. Damn.

Sherlock had been up for two hours now, couldn’t sleep. His whole body was tense, restless, constantly shifting. Presently, he faced his left, now his right; he settled facing the ceiling with his feet braced hard into the mattress and his hips lifted off the bed. He was losing complete control of himself, as thoughts came to him, unbidden, in the dark safety blanket of night. He would be alright by the morning, but right now his mind was filled with _John_.

John. Smiling at the wedding, dancing away with Mary, face hidden in her neck. John, smiling next to Mary with their daughter Rose. John, and all the times he ever touched Sherlock, or smiled at Sherlock, or looked him over, or talked to him, or…

John. Cut away from him now. John, the perfect straight husband and father. John, abandoning him.

And he loved him, he _loved_ him, he _loved him_. With his entire heart.

The door opened, and Sherlock dropped to the mattress, tears brimming now under eyelids automatically squeezed shut. He still braced his feet on the mattress, one foot visible next to his bed blanket. Oh, please let it just be Mrs. Hudson. Don’t let it be…

“Sherlock?” John’s voice, concern rising.

The bed quickly sunk under John’s body weight, and he could feel John’s firm grip on his shoulders. “Oh god, Sherlock, are you alright?”

He couldn’t bare the grief in that tone. He slightly loosened his eyelids, and tears streaked over his cheekbones.

“Oh god, talk to me, Sherlock, what happened?” pleaded John.

“Please,” Sherlock whimpered, and he couldn’t stand the sound of his own voice. However much it hurt, he would’ve been fine by the morning, he always was. If only John wasn’t here, right now.

“Please what, Sherlock?”

“Go.”

“Nope,” said John. “I’m not going anywhere. Please, tell me what’s wrong.”

No, the plan wasn’t fulfilled yet. Mary was still in their lives. “I can’t.”

“Sherlock, look at me.”

Sherlock was afraid to, afraid what it would reveal. Yet, he never could resist John. Hating himself, he slowly lifted his eyelids.

Pain, heartbreaking pain, was etched there, in the shine of his eyes and in the soft expression as he gazed at John.

“Talk to me,” said John.

Blinking, Sherlock asked, “Why are you even here?”

“M…Mary and I had a fight…”

Sherlock blinked, a flash of excitement and hope running through Sherlock’s eyes for a second, before he was able to shut it down into sadness again.

“…Sherlock?” asked John. “Is this about me and Mary?”

“No,” said Sherlock, but his voice cracked right in the middle, and John knew.

“Oh, Sherlock…” He shifted onto the bed, laying right beside Sherlock on it, facing him, holding him close. “I don’t love her, you know. I never forgave her, and I never will, not after what she did to you. Just say the word, and I’ll cut her loose. She can take the baby, too. If it’s gonna hurt you this much --“

“No, not yet. Please, just stay with her,” said Sherlock, regaining his voice. “I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not, you’re clearly not. Sherlock --“

“Please.” His eyes stared, begging, into John’s.

“Why?”

“It hasn’t yet run its course.”

“What?” said John. “Like hell it hasn’t. Come on, what is this really about? Some trick of yours, hm? Is it really worth all this?”

Sherlock didn’t say a word, but averted his gaze.

“Jesus, Sherlock. It better bloody be, coz this is killing me.”

“I know,” said Sherlock, “It’s killing me too. It has been since that night, but we have to stick to this.”

“What exactly is the end game here, Sherlock? What are you planning?”

“Too early to reveal that. But right now we’re too vulnerable to let her slip away. We need her.”

“For what?”

Sherlock still wouldn’t speak.

“Alright, you can’t tell me,” conceded John. “Forget the plan, then. What about us? What happens to us after this?”

“Same as always. Two of us against the world. We finish the job, hand in hand. And then…”

“Then?”

Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut and grinned. Then hesitating, his smile faltering. “If you’ll have me, John…” he began.

“Of course.”

“I want to be together. With you.” A pause, hesitating. “…I want you to be my boyfriend.”

John grinned now, and Sherlock snapped his eyes open.

“I’d love to,” said John.

“I love you,” said Sherlock.

John stared into Sherlock’s eyes, and they swelled with love. He let himself become absorbed in that image, savouring every moment.

“I love you too,” he replied.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which John made a drunken mistake, and Sherlock is tormented because it really wasn't a mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was inspired by [Reading Subtext by Englandwouldfall](http://archiveofourown.org/works/913487/chapters/1770692). I sort of drifted off in the middle of a scene and created this.

Sherlock was faced with an empty flat, the memory of a drunken kiss and the pain of John’s rejection. They hadn’t said two words to each other since it happened, and John seemed determined to avoid all contact with him that was conceivably possible. When they were together, the air seemed stilted, awkward, tense, and entirely unlike them.

So Sherlock raided the kitchen, headed directly for the cupboard where John kept the alcohol. He didn’t drink usually, but Sherlock was out of answers, and if this was the only way to get back what they had…

Sherlock had to admit he had some irrational fantasy in his mind when he pulled out the bottle of red wine and drank directly from the bottle of eventually getting drunk enough that when John found him, they would get over this awkwardness and get back to kissing. It is what they both wanted, after all.

_No_ , Sherlock had to remind himself. _It was what_ he _wanted_.

There was already a significant amount of wine missing from the bottle, from when he’d spilled it last night, but he drank the rest of it down as quickly as he could. Then he went back to the cupboard for something stronger, started to down the bottle and --

No, definitely not going to work. It felt like his mouth was on fire.

He set the bottle down on the counter. “Glass…” he muttered to himself, and went digging until he brought one out, John’s scotch glass, and returned to the bottles on the counter. The wine bottle, emptied, was pushed to the back, but he placed the glass beside the whiskey and poured himself out a full glass, bringing it to his lips and draining it as quickly as he could manage. It wasn’t easy. He had to drink as much as he could before John could find him. He needed to get drunk before then, so they could push down this barrier that lay between them. And the only way to do that was through the same way it had started: through alcohol.

They had to confront this before they could move on. And this was the easiest way to do it.

Sherlock finished the glass and closed his eyes, remembering the way John had felt pressed against him in the kitchen, pressed between that chest and the counter, remembering the way his lips had swelled against Sherlock’s, the way Sherlock had pulled him in…

Sherlock paused, mid-thought. It seemed that wasn’t the only thing that was swelling.

Sherlock pressed the cabinet below the counter as he poured himself another drink. As he drank, he continued to press into the cabinet, the pressure not quite enough. The alcohol was only fuelling the heat that was spreading up through him, and it was quite hard to imagine it wasn’t John who he was thrusting into.

He stilled as he finished his second glass. This wasn’t helping anything. And he’d begun to think maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

John wouldn’t want to kiss him drunk anyway. This really wasn’t a solution; if he wanted to kiss John again, he had to do it while he was sober. John wouldn’t accept anything else, would just think that this meant nothing to him, that he was just drunk and didn’t _understand_.

He did understand. But John so rarely did, so he wouldn’t know what to make of Sherlock if he saw him like this. Tears leaping from his eyes, he grasped his hand over the neck of the whiskey bottle and bowed his head, pressing once more into the counter cabinet and stilling his body as the tears fell.

“John,” he croaked. He couldn’t move. He knew it was hard to escape from the man in this flat, but he was fairly sure John didn’t come running as soon as his name was mentioned in even the lightest pitch.

But he couldn’t let John see him like this, couldn’t stand this distance, or what his body was doing. If he could just escape to his room, even if he left the bottle out, leaving John to wonder but not to know…

His body was tense, not just with aching desire now, but fear. The desperate fear of getting caught. He should flee now, get to his room, just in case. He turned --

And froze.

It was John.

“How long have you been standing there?” asked Sherlock.

“Long enough to know you have a problem,” said John. “And long enough to know that, whatever caused it, it has something to do with me.”

Sherlock remembered he’d been crying, and felt the slow trail one tear was making down his face. Tear stains. Tear stains that John could _see_.

“It’s nothing --“ he said, trying to push past John.

“It’s not nothing,” John countered, catching him by the shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

He could feel John’s eyes trail down and paused. Damn, he’d been trying to avoid that. Hide it, really.

“You, um…” John began, not quite sure how to broach the subject.

“Yeah,” said Sherlock.

“You were thinking of… me?”

Sherlock thought it was better to remain silent. Let John reach his conclusions, but he wasn’t going to confirm them.

“Can I go to my room now?”

“Not until you explain,” said John. “Why were you drinking my alcohol? You don’t normally drink.”

“Thought it might make it easier.”

“Easier than what?”

Half-truths, then. “You’ve been avoiding me. I knew it was because of what happened that night. And since the source of the tension was alcohol, I thought maybe… seeing me drink might bring it all out in the open, and we could get past this.”

“You’re clearly not past this. Look at you,” said John, not looking at his face. “Do you honestly…?”

If he could detach meaning from the word, perhaps it wouldn’t matter if he said it. It was just a word, a expression of language. Nothing overly significant in that. “Yes,” said Sherlock.

From the look on John’s face when Sherlock finally dared to look at him, John didn’t think it was so insignificant. “What?” he said, just another word.

Sherlock instinctively looked away. “It was a mistake.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Sherlock looked up, stunned, forcing himself to focus on John and fix this little problem. John’s eyes shined with shock and… fondness. He had to say something, he couldn’t stand this, he had to fix this somehow.

Instead, Sherlock panicked; those eyes were overwhelming him. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, and moved to pass John once again.

John caught his shoulder. “Yes, it does,” he said, his voice elevated. Pleading, wanting.

“No,” said Sherlock, disbelieving. “You don’t want me.”

“Yes, I do.”

They stared at each other. Sherlock was too lost in John to count the seconds, but he was pretty sure the number exceeded six.

Sherlock’s hand moved across himself before he realised what he was doing and threw it back at his side.

“Do it.”

“What?”

“Touch yourself,” said John.

Sherlock looked down, finally confronting himself straining through his trousers, and if he just focused on that and tried to ignore John, perhaps he could do it. But John’s breath was too hot on him, his body too close to be ignored. Squeezing his eyes shut, he moved his hand back, resting it gently over his prick.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“What do you want from me, John?”

He didn’t dare look up. Instead, he saw John’s hand press over the top of his, pressing into his groin and guiding it, up and down.

Sherlock came back to life, and bucked against John’s hand -- no, his hand. He pressed into himself more eagerly, searching out the friction, wanting, no, needing more. “Oh, John,” he moaned.

“Yes,” replied John.

“John…”

John pressed harder into him, until he knocked Sherlock’s hand out of the way was rubbing him frantically, gripping him, and Sherlock lost him in the ecstasy he provided. “Oh, John!” he cried louder, and still it wasn’t enough for John, who yanked down his pyjama bottoms so that it was skin on skin, and Sherlock threw his head back, overwhelmed, seeking more, and more, and more…

He came in John’s hand, and he brought his head back forward. He put his hand on John’s shoulder, who was lingering in front of him in a daze.

For a moment, he panicked, worried this might lend itself to even more awkwardness in the future. He wasn’t sure if he was drunk enough for John to rule this as a mistake, but from the distance in his eyes, it was looking more and more likely. And Sherlock knew, now, it wasn’t a mistake; it couldn’t be.

“John,” Sherlock said, and the words tumbled from his mouth before he could stop them, “this isn’t a mistake, none of this, and it isn’t just about sex, not to me. It’s never been about sex, it’s always been about much more to me than that. You know me, know how little I store by such things. It’s you, John. I love you, I --“

He stopped himself, horrified that he’d let it slip. But it was out now, and he couldn’t very well take it back. Even more horrifying was the fact that he really didn’t want to take it back, because despite his rebelling logical mind, he actually liked it. Liked being in love, loved knowing who John was and what that meant to him, liked not being able to take the feeling back because he really didn’t ever want it to leave. No matter how much it pained him, in the past, present or future.

John looked up at him, shocked. 

Then not so shocked. “I love you too,” he said.


End file.
